


Once Upon a Dream

by libraryseraph



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:10:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/libraryseraph/pseuds/libraryseraph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Calliope gives Jade a gift in the dreambubbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon a Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Victorionious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Victorionious/gifts).



“Callie, look at this!” Jade focused on the empty space between her hands, pressing her fingertips together tightly. A brilliant green fire flashed up from between her fingers, and she opened her hands to reveal a green flower.   
“Oh, let me see!” Callie reached a delicate, long-fingered hand out to take it, “I’ve never seen a flower like this before”   
Jade leaned in to tuck it behind one of Callie’s horns, in among her curly white hair. She took a moment to scratch behind one of her pointed, green-tinged ears. “they grew all over the island where I grew up! They weren’t green, then. i think being a first guardian means youre stuck with green”  
“bUt green is wonderfUl!”  
“oh, i know. i’m totally not going to insult our color or anything.””  
“what was it like? yoUr island, i mean”   
Jade scrunched up her face. “Well, it was really green. Like it was covered in jungle everywhere.”  
“jUngle is the one where it’s hot, right?”  
“Yes!” Jade looked over at Callie, who was bent over her tablet, drawing intently.   
“keep telling me about your island, dear.”  
“well, my house was at the edge of a cliff. and it was a cool house. It was like a big white tower, and my room was at the very top!” Jade flopped onto her back and stared up at the blank black sky.   
“is something wrong?” Callie’s face came into her field of view.  
“i guess it’s just talking about it like this, it’s made me realize that i’ll never get a chance to go back.”  
Callie frowned, and Jade felt the rasp of troll skin against her fingers “’i’m sorry, jade. all I ever wanted was to get away from my home,, so I’m afraid I don’t Understand how yoU feel. I’m not very good at being hUman sympathetic”  
Jade flopped over onto her stomach to look at Callie. “hey, don’t say that! you’re really great! Like even the trolls i liked could be really dumb, but you never do that!”   
Callie grinned slightly “really? yoU think I’m the best troll yoU’ve ever met?”  
“well, its not like it’s a competition. but you are definitely- what’s that thing you always say?- the bees knees”  
Calliope blushed a florescent lime and squeezed Jade’s hand again. Her hands were long and thin, with rough skin and faint traes of her blood showing through to the joints “oh, jade, yoU are wonderful. now, close your eyes. i have a sUrprise for yoU.”  
Jade closed her eyes. It didn’t really do much, she could still hear the distant noises of potential all around her and smell the prickly-cold vacuum of space, but it would have been rude not to. There was a noise like a soft, distant thunderclap.   
“yoU can open your eyes now”  
Jade opened her eyes. For a second, she thought she’d fallen asleep again and was dreaming. Spread out around her was her island. She was sitting at the top of a small hill, looking at her house and the jungle. From her tiny description, Callie had somehow managed to recreate her childhood home. Callie was looking at Jade expectantly. “do yoU like it?”  
Jade swallowed around the lump in her throat. “it’s perfect. You’re perfect”   
“now yoU have to show me everything, and see if there are any details i got wrong!”   
Jade grabbed Callie by the hands “hey, don’t just assume you’ve done something wrong! everything looks perfect”  
The two of them ran down the hill together. 

“what in the dickens is this thing?”  
The two of them were standing in the foyer, staring up at Callie’s drawn copy of the typhus minion.   
“you tell me, you drew it”  
Callie spluttered “my pen jUst sort of pUlls these things oUt of memories. i don’t realize everything i’m drawing until it’s too late”  
Jade patted Callie on the shoulder. “i was only joking! It’s called a typhus minion, and my grandfather found it…somewhere. he told me a bunch of stories about it when i was a kid, but i think he made most of them up. it always freaked me out”  
“i could replace it with something nicer, if yoU like”  
Jade shook her head. “no. it’s a part of my childhood. it would feel wrong to get rid of it.”  
Callie smiled and patted it. “it’s a good colour. i would have been sad to take it away”  
“come on! i'll show you my room!”

“it’s so coloUrfUl! what’s all of this made of?” Callie picked up one of Jade’s squiddles and bounced it in her palm.   
“well, according to the official squiddles website, they’re made of friendship and fun! that and polyester.”  
“we didn’t have anything like that where I grew Up. i’m doing a lot of things for the first time today”  
Jade sat down next to her “that’s good, right? i mean, if we’re taking things too fast, we can slow down. it would be really terrible if you were uncomfortable.”  
“jade, yoU don’t have to be concerned on my accoUnt. really, i’m jUst so grateful to have a friend. it doesn’t really matter”  
Jade grabbed Callie’s face as hard as she could, bending Callie to look at her. “young lady, you stop that this instant! thats not how having friends works! friends arent people who make you feel bad. if i make you feel bad, you have to tell me, understand?”  
Callie looked at her, and then burst into tears.   
“shit! shit! dont cry! what did i say?”  
Callie kept crying, but eventually she took a deep shuddering breath.   
“jade, I don’t know mUch about hUmans, bUt i do know that it’s bad to lie. jade, what woUld yoU do if yoU had a friend who was lying to yoU?”   
Jade put an arm around Callie’s shoulders “well, sometimes you cant tell your friends everything. like before the game, I had to lie to my friends sometimes because i knew things they didnt, and they wouldn’t have understood”  
“i know how that feels. i was talking about something different. what if yoU had to hide something in order for people to care about yoU? and yoU didn’t want to lie to your friends bUt yoU had to so they woUldn’t hate yoU.”  
Callie wasn’t looking at Jade anymore. Her eyes gazed off into the distance. Jade sensed she was walking on slippery ground. She took a deep breath. “well, id tell them that we were friends, and they could trust me. after that, if they wanted to show whatever it was to me, id make the strongest promise i could not to tell. id swear on the bible or the troll bible or the necronomicon or whatever they wanted me to swear on, and i wouldn’t freak out.”  
“yoU wouldn’t freak oUt?” Callie’s voice was tiny.   
“i squiddle-swear it!” Jade grabbed two of the squiddles and stuck them together. She had been hoping to make Callie laugh, but instead she only smiled a little.   
“jade darling, i want yoU to know that yoU have been one of my best friends. i’ll Understand if yoU don’t want to associate with me after this, bUt i still want to thank yoU for the time we spent together.” Callie pulled herself free of Jade’s arms, and stood straight. Jade scrambled to her feet. ‘Callie, what are you doing?”   
A light was beginning to grow around Callie, hiding her from view “i've never shown this to anybody before”  
The light grew and grew, until Jade had to shut her eyes against it. She couldn’t shut her nose, though, and she could smell things growing and changing. Eventually, the light on her shut eyelids dimmed back down. “yoU can look now, if yoU want” Callie’s voice was different now, lower and more gravelly. Jade opened her eyes.

She wasn’t sure what Callie was anymore, but she wasn’t a troll. She’d grown until she towered over Jane, and her skin had turned a deep green, similar to her suit. Her head was bald, and the skin on her face was stretched right to the bone. Callie must have noticed Jade staring: she turned and tried to pull herself in. Jade put a hand on Callie’s arm. “is this what you really look like?”   
Callie nodded. “I’m sorry. i know how terrible it is.”   
Jade hugged Callie as hard as she could, ignoring the way her arms didn’t reach all the way around. “its not terrible at all!”  
Callie turned. “yoU really think so?”  
Jade looked at her again, as hard as she could. Callie’s eyes were still big and green, and even with her face stripped down to a skull she was still smiling softly. “yes! i think that you are a mega cute alien, no matter what you look like. i just have one question”  
Callie stiffened “what is it?”   
“do you have any green paint?”   
Callie pulled her paint set out of somewhere and handed it to Jade. She stared confusedly as jade unscrewed the top of the jar, and began to dip the brush in. Jade stared at the tip of the brush, and felt a blush beginning to build in her face “um, callie? could you help me? i was going to do this myself and make a big statement about how you shouldn’t feel bad about how you look, but i dont think i can do it neatly”  
Callie stared at Jade for a few long moments, and then burst out laughing, her massive shoulders shaking. “oh, jade, bloody hell. come here, yoU”   
Callie gently took Jade’s face in one of her hands and took the paintbrush in the other “are yoU really sUre yoU want to do this? i mean, yoU’re a hUman, and yoU look so nice”  
Jade took Callie’s hand off her face so they could link pinkies, even if Callie’s finger was too big for her to really get her finger around. “We’re blood sisters, remember? we’re already the same. besides, i think you look pretty cute too!”   
Callie blushed: her blushes were still an adorable bright green. “thank yoU, jade. i can’t even begin to tell yoU how glad i am to have a friend like yoU” Jade grinned “likewise”


End file.
